George RR Martin

In another controversial thread, many of you suggested reading for me. I appreciate this very much. I took the list you all gave me to some second hand book stores and stumbles across the entire series of A Song of Ice and Fire. And even better, for some reason, they were all new! I couldn't help it and bought them all at less than half price.

What should I expect? Any good? Bad? Writing style? Strong/weak story? Is it with elves and dwarves, or, his own peoples?

I´m re-reading A Game of Thrones again right now and enjoying it thoroughly.

Lots and lots of characters, semi-fast paced story but way more relaxed than Erikson - bringing that up since that was the latest discussion.
The characters are well thought through and evolves through their actions and actions against them. A series focused on people more than worlds.

I am sure you´ll enjoy GRRM much more than Erikson in any case, even though the two are my favourites. Let´s just hope we´ll see an end to the series as well.

There is a dwarf, but his dwarfism is caused by birthing complications, he's not the member of a magical race. Four books in and we haven't seen any elves as such yet, but you can never tell with those critters, they get everywhere. The books are light on magic, but heavy on political intrigue. Plenty of violence and he likes to shock his audience by doing the unexpected. Hope you like waiting for new volumes, too, because while Martin writes very well he's taken his time ever since the 3rd book.

I've been holding off on reading this until we draw a little closer to the television series' release. I want to start reading the first book maybe 2 weeks or so before it airs, so I can have some fun with "Hey, I just read that" moments and such. I am also one of the lucky ones who hasn't read it yet, but I have heard so many good things about it that it's getting hard to wait.

You should expect an extended, multi-stage story of politics and war that parallels and takes off from the British War of the Roses, but is not limited to that. It is set in an island country, Westeros, that experiences a long seasonal cycle, that was completely changed by a devastating war to depose a mad king, followed by a period of peace, and now faces a new battle for succession that takes place on more than one continent. There's witchcraft, dragons, lotus-eaters, wolves, outcast tribes, oh, and the Scotland-like area has zombies. Who like cold. And the country is entering into winter.

There may be stuff in there you don't like, but I will say that for me, Martin is brilliant at character point-of-view, very good at battle scenes, and stitches many metaphorical, thematic threads through the thing with some very distinctive scenes that should totally rock in the HBO t.v. series adaptation. (Pot of gold, baby.)

The forum has numerous threads on Martin and the series, which RobB will probably give you links to, if you ask him nicely.

Expect the best damned series out there.
Super strong writing with the most intriguing characters your bound to encounter.
I cant wait for the next one.
Enjoy.
DD

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100% concur.

No elves or dwarves in the "high" fantasy sense, but there are a few dragons and they're done quite well. The tension & politics between the characters really make this series what it is for me (the best), but Martin went even a step further and kept it all very approachable. When I'm reading ASOIAF, I don't feel like it's so high-brow that it's over my head.

Except very slow story with way too many characters. Whenever you manage to start liking some character expect plot including him/her to stop and expect to read few hundred pages of dozen other characters. Expect plot to progress extremely slow. Plot elements hinted in book 1 had barely got started in book 3 or 4 where I stopped reading the series.

Expect fantastic dialogue, and gripping cliffhangers. Expect grey characters with both good and bad traits.

Expect a damn good read!

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Namel said:

Expect very slow story with way too many characters. Whenever you manage to start liking some character expect plot including him/her to stop and expect to read few hundred pages of dozen other characters. Expect plot to progress extremely slow. Plot elements hinted in book 1 had barely got started in book 3 or 4 where I stopped reading the series.

Except very slow story with way too many characters. Whenever you manage to start liking some character expect plot including him/her to stop and expect to read few hundred pages of dozen other characters. Expect plot to progress extremely slow. Plot elements hinted in book 1 had barely got started in book 3 or 4 where I stopped reading the series.

And expect author to die before series is finished.

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Expect a lot of trolls to come out with factually questionable statements when discussing the books. Seriously, I'm surprised it took this long.

Except very slow story with way too many characters. Whenever you manage to start liking some character expect plot including him/her to stop and expect to read few hundred pages of dozen other characters.

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Subjective, but fair criticism that I have seen raised before. If you don't like the revolving-POV approach GRRM uses in the series (and other authors like Stephen Donaldson have used for theirs), you'll struggle to like the series overall.

Expect plot to progress extremely slow. Plot elements hinted in book 1 had barely got started in book 3 or 4 where I stopped reading the series.

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Factually erroneous. Books 1-3 form the first major story arc of the series, and to some degree are a self-contained narrative (as they had to be, as Book 4 was originally supposed to pick up on the action five years later), although lacking overall resolution. Many storylines begun in Book 1 are concluded in their entirety by the end of Book 3 (including the core war storyline) and the rest are brought to suitable pausing points. Book 4 is effectively a reboot of the series exploring the aftermath of Books 1-3 and beginning a new cycle in the storyline, complete with cliffhanger endings. For this reason I sometimes recommended that new readers halt at Book 3 instead of progressing to 4, as it is considerably less frustrating.

And expect author to die before series is finished.

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I was going to point out this was a moronic and trolling comment made in exceptional bad taste given what has happened to some of GRRM's friends (like Robert Jordan and Roger Zelazny, who both died with their main fantasy series incomplete), but then I realised it might actually be correct.

After a few more comments like this, I'm wondering if GRRM will see the appeal of finishing the last two books in their entirety, building a bonfire out of the only existing manuscript pages for them, leaping on top and setting light to the thing whilst ten thousand fireworks explode in the shape of a raised middle finger in the background.

Some trolls are in erikson-threads, some are in martin but there is more public outcry in one case and more, how should I put it, official defense for one kind of troll...

Seriously though, it sickens me whenever the death-talk starts pouring, the amount of disrespect... Enjoy what you have. The first three books Martin wrote are great, among the best fantasy written, if he never write anything equally good his reputation would still be great and we can pretend Feast never happened.

Factually erroneous. Books 1-3 form the first major story arc of the series, and to some degree are a self-contained narrative (as they had to be, as Book 4 was originally supposed to pick up on the action five years later), although lacking overall resolution. Many storylines begun in Book 1 are concluded in their entirety by the end of Book 3 (including the core war storyline) and the rest are brought to suitable pausing points. Book 4 is effectively a reboot of the series exploring the aftermath of Books 1-3 and beginning a new cycle in the storyline, complete with cliffhanger endings. For this reason I sometimes recommended that new readers halt at Book 3 instead of progressing to 4, as it is considerably less frustrating.

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I don't remember exactly at which book I stopped. I think it was middle of 3rd or 4th. Anyways at that point war had a big battle that didn't really finish the war. Evil behing the wall which seemed like major part had not yet even started. Most sons and daughters of that family that was in big part were still just starting to examine their abilities and had not yet done much anything. Some Mongol horde was starting to have leadership problems oversees. At least to me things were still just starting.

That was when I realized that at this speed It would need at least 5 times as many book as I had read to actually conclude the story. Considering pretty much any series I have ever read tends to slow towards the end even 15 books seems bit conservative estimate for this to get finished. I really don't think it will ever get finished. Sales of the new volumes go down and the author writes even slower. And eventually dies before he finishes the series.

Of course I might be wrong. If series gets ever finished I promise to give it another try. Maybe me or my mood has changed and I enjoy it then. You never know.